1. Belinda Lee studied at St Margaret's, a boarding school in Exeter in Devon, and then at the Tudor Arts Academy in Surrey.
31 Facts About Belinda Lee
1. 2.
Belinda Lee was a self-described "spoiled only child" who wanted to be an actress from the age of nine.
3.
Belinda Lee joined the Nottingham Playhouse repertory company for a year, then won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Bloomsbury in London.
4.
In 1953, Belinda Lee made her stage debut in a production of Point of Departure.
5.
Guest arranged to have publicity photographs for The Runaway Bus taken by Rank's still photographer Cornel Lucas, who Belinda Lee would marry in June 1954.
6.
Belinda Lee had another small part in Meet Mr Callaghan, a B-picture crime drama for director Charles Saunders at Eros.
7.
Belinda Lee was cast as a lead in only her fourth film, Hammer Pictures' Murder by Proxy, with Dane Clark, shot in late 1953, and released in the US by Lippert Pictures.
8.
Belinda Lee had an eye-catching role in The Belles of St Trinian's, a hugely popular comedy from Frank Launder, at British Lion, where she seduced a jockey, in order to get information.
9.
In December 1954, Belinda Lee was cast as the second female lead in a thriller Footsteps in the Fog, supporting Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons, directed by Arthur Lubin for Columbia.
10.
Belinda Lee then made No Smoking, for Tempean Films, with Reg Dixon.
11.
Belinda Lee was a nurse again in a thriller with Donald Sinden, Eyewitness, directed by Muriel Box for Rank.
12.
Belinda Lee replaced Diana Dors in The Big Money with Ian Carmichael, a film shot in April 1956 but which Sir John Davis of Rank disliked so much they delayed showing it for two years.
13.
Belinda Lee was top billed in a crime drama The Secret Place, directed by Clive Donner; she had the female lead in Miracle in Soho with John Gregson, filmed in early 1957, and in the period drama Dangerous Exile, opposite Louis Jourdan; during the filming of the latter she was injured when her hair caught fire.
14.
Towards the end of 1957 Belinda Lee went to Italy to play a model in the Ancient World in The Goddess of Love.
15.
Belinda Lee returned to Rank to make Nor the Moon by Night, which was shot in London and on location in the Union of South Africa.
16.
Italian newspapers reported that Belinda Lee had taken an overdose of sleeping pills.
17.
Belinda Lee said that she had been suffering from insomnia and had taken an overdose by mistake.
18.
Belinda Lee transferred to a plane to Durban, stayed in the crew cabin and was allowed to disembark later.
19.
Miss Belinda Lee has often said she would rather not work in this country.
20.
Belinda Lee relocated to the Continent and Rank subsequently put its efforts into promoting Anne Heywood.
21.
Belinda Lee stayed in Germany to make a local movie, Love Now, Pay Later, playing Rosemarie Nitribitt, a prostitute who was murdered.
22.
Orsini later wrote that when Belinda Lee went to Germany to make a movie "she felt would be important to her career" he refused to go, which ended their relationship.
23.
Belinda Lee went back to Italy to make Long Night in 1943, a critically acclaimed war drama, and had a cameo in Love, the Italian Way, a comedy with Walter Chiari, shot in mid 1960.
24.
Belinda Lee appeared opposite Cornel Wilde in Constantine and the Cross, playing Fausta, and had leading roles in Blood Feud and Ghosts of Rome, the latter with Marcello Mastroianni.
25.
In December 1960, Belinda Lee announced her engagement to filmmaker Gualtiero Jacopetti.
26.
Belinda Lee took several months off to accompany Jacopetti around the world to shoot footage for a documentary.
27.
On 12 March 1961, Belinda Lee died in a car crash near San Bernardino, California, on her way to Los Angeles from Las Vegas, on Highway 91, nine miles east of Baker, California.
28.
Belinda Lee was a passenger in a car going 100 miles per hour when a tyre blew, causing the car to skid.
29.
Belinda Lee was thrown from the car and found lying 63 feet away and was pronounced dead at Barstow Community Hospital.
30.
Belinda Lee's ashes are interred in the Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome, Italy.
31.
Belinda Lee's career was hampered by a stormy private life which led to unfavourable publicity.